


turing test

by Driehoek



Category: Titanfall (Video Games)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reunions, Robot/Human Relationships, Takes place during titanfall 2, as long as they both have something similar to accomplish, ash and blisk really hate eachother but they also work well together, gets a lil philosphical on the robot consciousness thing, headcanons, kuben blisk is Not able to handle his own emotions, lots of headcanons, oh and there's angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 13:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30022335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Driehoek/pseuds/Driehoek
Summary: He wanted to say something, he felt like he needed to say something, but simultaneously he felt like nothing he could say would even begin to convey what he wanted to convey. He was very skilled at expressing himself in the field in excruciating detail, laying out battle plans for his pilots, but outside of battle, his words were always clumsy and underwhelming.A oneshot about the true reason why Blisk accepted the IMC contract regarding the Typhon situation.
Relationships: Kuben Blisk/Spyglass (Titanfall)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	turing test

Frantic.

That was the word he was looking for.

He hadn't been able to concentrate on what Ash was trying to tell him because he was oddly unsettled by the way in which she carried herself. Her normally eerily calm demeanour had frayed around the edges: her fingers were restless, her gait was almost twitchy, and with the way she moved her head it took little imagination to imagine irises shooting around, swimming in too much white, instead of the colourless void behind the optic openings of her mask.

That afternoon, Blisk had decided to decline the high priority contract offered to the Apex Predators by the IMC, which asked them to remain in stationary wide orbit around Typhon in case the James Macallan should unexpectedly divert from its course. It had been venturing uncomfortably close to Typhon.

They were in the same sector anyway, it would have been easy money, but the thought of having to cross paths with the militia again did not outweigh those advantages for him.

Ever since, Ash had been frantic. About what exactly, he didn't know, but he had a hunch it had something to do with the declined contract.

And indeed, when she had entered the cockpit of their carrier that evening, she tried to subtly start the conversation by asking if he expected any other contract offers soon.

He looked up from the holoscreen in front of him to see Ash standing way too close for comfort. Her digitigrade legs soundlessly carried her weight, and even after having worked with her numerous times over the past few years, he still couldn't get used to it.

"Three seconds, trying to program a jump drive," he muttered, turning his back to her once again.

Before he could even blink, her hand slapped onto the projector in the dashboard, metal against metal, and the hologram stuttered and reset itself.

He turned around to face her once more, anger burning up in his chest.

"Oi! What's wrong with  _ you _ ?" he barked.

Ash didn't even flinch, but the fingers of her free hand were writhing around against her palm.

_ Unsettling. _

"Maybe you should reconsider," she said.

"Why would I?" he spat. "Just so we can clash with the Militia again? Was hardly rewarding last time."

"I wasn't at Demeter," she stated matter-of-factly, slowly sliding her hand off of the projector. It would be no use trying to start reprogramming the jump drive, her reflexes would always be faster than his.

"And who knows, maybe this time they changed  _ for real _ ," she added in a saccharine voice, her way of soaking her words in sarcasm.

He incredulously shook his head, leaned back in his chair, and gave a joyless chuckle. "Why do you want this so badly? It's a bit sudden, you've seen how Kane was doing this morning and Viper cracked his hatch back when— I think it was even before Salvo? Fuckin' idiot. Told him to repair it three times now."

"It could be useful," she said, slightly cocking her head to seem thoughtful, to seem like she was carefully considering her options, to seem like she was not even entirely convinced herself.

It was painfully obvious that she was.

"Enough with the theatre." He vaguely gestured at her. "What do you want— what do you  _ really _ want?"

Her entire body language immediately changed. Her fists clenched back up again.

"I want you to accept the contract," she said. "I want to go to Typhon."

Her honesty was a nice change of pace, he appreciated that.

"Should've said that earlier," he said with a nod to the digital clock on the rebooting holoscreen, "the contract application deadline is in—"

"34 minutes. I know."

"Yes, 34 minutes," he said, slowly turning his head back.

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, folded his hands. "Look. Give me a good reason, and I'll consider it."

"Don't just consider it," she said sharply, "accept the contract."

"A good reason," he repeated imperturbably.

The sound of her sharp feet cutting across the floor, and suddenly her faceplate was inches from his face, one metal hand grabbing his collar. It was more menacing than he'd like to admit. 

"There is a remnant fleet mass database on the surface of Typhon," she said, her words way too meticulously spoken. "It is disguised as a research facility, but that is nothing but a front for the networked databases underneath."

Remnant fleet.

Those two words felt like taking the butt of a rifle to the ribs at full force, no, it felt worse. He'd experienced the rifle before, but this? This was worse.

Ash had noticed his reaction, of course she had. She had shifted her weight back, stood upright again, seemed to consider her next words carefully.

Blisk was absolutely certain she was about to manipulate her, leveraging off of his reaction.

But she was silent for too long. Manipulation took her no effort, but genuine words took time.

"I know about Spyglass," she finally said.

Oh, this was absolutely worse than the rifle.

A memory. A hand, synthetic fabric only barely providing a barrier to the cold metal underneath, the thumb softly—  _ lovingly— _ rubbing across his cheek.

_ "I will allow you to find me." _

He had held his breath the entire time the memory played back in his head. He let it escape slowly, air whistling between his teeth.

"What do you know?" he asked, it sounded less hostile than he meant it to sound. He was disgusted with his own vulnerability, but he couldn't even hide it in his surprise.

"Things I  _ wished _ I didn't know, believe me," she muttered. "I am aware that you two were close."

Blisk would have laughed at that description, if it weren't for the fact his stomach was making movements it really should not be making.

Was Ash being uncharacteristically merciful by not calling it by its name, or was she making sure to stay in his favour by not doing so, not risking to provoke a hostile reaction from him?

"Blisk." Her voice was uncharacteristically soft.

He did not like this.

"Spyglass might be there."

A black pit of misery had opened up inside him, and it didn't take long for his mind to distort it into white hot anger. It climbed up in his chest again and he rose from the cockpit chair, aggressively pointed in her direction.

" _ You _ want to go to Typhon, eh? Fine! Plan your own  _ bloody _ course and contact the  _ bloody _ IMC on your own to let 'em know we have reconsidered! But it's on  _ you _ if they don't take our future contract refusals seriously!"

Ash stayed ominously calm through his outburst, which almost made him regret it. Almost. He knew she  _ knew _ , he couldn't bear the thought of being this  _ known _ , which only further fueled his anger. This wasn't his regular temper, this was old pain that got squeezed into shapes it didn't belong in.

"Talk to me like that again and you  _ will _ regret it," she simply said, before walking over to the now idle holoscreen.

That was deserved. He knew she wasn't bluffing.

The worst thing was that he believed her earlier claim on the databases, and that it made him  _ want _ to go to Typhon. But that was irrational.

How could she know? The remnant fleet operated and coordinated in ways that were unknown to most of what was left of the IMC. Ash was skilled in obtaining information through any means, but he genuinely wondered how she could know this. Even if he was actively going to look for Remnant Fleet facilities throughout the IMC-controlled frontier, he wouldn't have found any, and surely not one as big as the alleged Typhon facility.

He had walked out of the cockpit, ignored the curious glances of Slone and Kane from the small living area in the ship, and headed for his cabin.

"Blisk."

He didn't even want to turn around to face her again.

"I programmed the course diversion and contacted the IMC."

"And?" he asked sharply, gripping the doorframe to his cabin so hard his knuckles turned white.

"They want us to touch down on Typhon in thirty, or else the contract is off."

He uttered a frustrated sound, combed his fingers through his hair, walked back to the cockpit, away from the prying eyes in the living area.

"Listen. We both need something on Typhon," she said in a low voice.

"Oh, I don't know, do I?" he hissed back.

"It would be easier for the both of us if we know exactly what we're going to do once we're there."

"Why would I want to be on Typhon?" he said, sounding less convinced, even to himself.

Ash crossed her arms. "Don't deny it. If you were less emotionally constipated you'd practically cry with joy at the chance of seeing him again."

She wasn't wrong, and he hated that.

"Maybe I changed my mind," he muttered. "It's been years. I changed. He could've, too."

"Don't lie to yourself. I saw how you reacted when I mentioned the facility."

He hesitated, looked away.

"The others don't need to know about this. We touch down, clear out some Militia for good measure, I'll go into the facility to look for the databases… and for  _ him _ ."

His mouth was dry. "Alright."

Ash immediately turned around, back to the comms device.

"No need to wait any longer. We'll be there in twenty. Ash out."

* * *

"Clearing out some Militia" was not the easy job he had imagined it to be.

The James Macallan apparently launched lifeboat pods at an angle, and they had been ejected across hundreds of acres on the rough surface of Typhon. It would take ages to clear them all. They even encountered a few sole Titans, but it was six of them against one. They stood no chance.

Ash left for the facility. Research, she told the others. They ate it up without problem, still high on the thrill of battle. They didn't even question why she brought her titan for this research of hers.

He sent the others off in all directions from the James Macallan, then headed for the other end of the facility.

The Typhon IMC dynamic testing facility was unimaginably big. It was situated against the base of a mountain range, and it sprawled out into the mountain, around the mountain, on either side of the mountain, there was no end to be seen. Various sizes of domes poked out from the roof, some barely breaking the dark tile on top, others rising high above the building. There were chimneys and pipes everywhere, dark smoke rising up to the sky. The IMC didn't care about sustainability, there were plenty of planets on the frontier to suck dry and move on from, leaving empty husks of what once were worlds in their wake. It struck even Blisk as a rather crude approach.

Ash had entered the facility from the northern end, and he was about to enter from the north western end. Somehow these two entrances were fourteen klicks apart, and the western entrance was even further down south. This facility was enormous.

He was greeted by two extremely bored IMC grunts, who looked at him disembarking from his massive Legion titan with fascination.

"Routine control, carry on," he told them.

"Sir, yes sir," they said in unison, straightening their backs and staring straight ahead.

He could practically feel their glances looking back at him, then back at his titan, and he shook his head to himself.

This facility was definitely a cover for something else, that was for sure.

There were catwalks aplenty, leading over rapidly moving assembly lines and then going down on either side, stairs leading farther down than ground level, down into the bowels of the facility.

This was not just a testing facility.

Blisk lightly kept his hand on the railing of the walkway as he walked along the assembly line, his other hand hovering over his wingman holster. He wasn't afraid of heights, but the combination of the aggressively moving machinery and the unknown depths below him made him want to exercise caution.

He pressed the call button on his headset, selected the encrypted channel him and Ash had agreed to use for any and all communications regarding their journey into the facility.

"Ash. Come in, Ash."

The line crackled, some static sounded. No reply.

Of course. Of course, he should have expected this. Completely off the radar.

"Ash, do you copy? This is Blisk, over."

Nothing.

Blisk sighed, rubbed his face. He'd think twice next time before expecting cooperation from his colleague.

Suddenly the high, shrill tone of an old speaker coming to life sounded right over his head.

Blisk immediately brought his hands up to cover his ears, frantically looking for the source of the sound. There were multiple speakers around this part of the assembly line, but this one was directly above him.

"Hello, commander."

He contemplated just shooting the damn thing down.

"This is Ash. I copy. I have located the assembly line control room, over." Her voice echoed richly through the facility. All the IMC personnel present in the facility heard her, there was no way this announcement didn't resound throughout the entire building.

So much for sublety.

"Can you just use our comms like we agreed to?" he yelled into his earpiece.

The speaker above him made more unpleasant sounds, and her voice was in his earpiece again.

"I have located the assembly line control room," she repeated. "It has a PA system. Over."

"I noticed that much," he said, rubbing the back of his head to regain composure. "Found anything else? Over."

The walkway ended here. He glanced over the edge.

He could not see the end of the stairwell.

"I did find something," she said in a tone of voice he couldn't quite gauge.

"What did you find? Over." He was starting to get annoyed, she was obviously having fun with deliberately delaying him.

"I found a map."

"For god's sake, Ash, that doesn't tell me a lot, now does it?" Blisk barked in his earpiece, glancing around a corner. His heavy combat boots made the metal catwalk rattle with each step. He almost wondered if it would be able to hold his weight.

"If only you let me finish. I found a map of the ventilation ducts in the northern half of the facility on a holoscreen. Security information. Apparently the facility goes seventeen stories underground… and the bottom fifteen are R-6D floors."

A cold shiver climbed up his spine. R-6D floors were something he was familiar with, most IMC carriers had a few of them. They were complete floors filled with turboservers and database terminals, with extremely tight security. Blisk had only been inside them a couple of times, with strict instructions to only pull data from one terminal in particular and to not even touch the others.

That was just two floors, not even stretching across a full carrier. 

This?

He peered over the railing of the stairs. For as far as he could tell from here, whatever ground floor was below the assembly line seemed to follow the exact layout of the facility. Fifteen stories of that?

"Ash," he said into his earpiece, "the factory is a front for the underground databases."

"Excellent deduction," Ash said, her voice singy-songy with sarcasm. Blisk huffed under his breath with annoyance.

"I see something else here, too," Ash continued.

"Oi, don't make me play twenty questions, just  _ tell _ me!" Blisk barked into his earpiece. Only when he heard the echo of his own voice bounce off of the metal surfaces across the hall and die down a lot slower than was comfortable, he realised he had shouted.

Ash was silent for a moment, and for all of three seconds he feared her meagre patience with him had run thin.

"There is one ventilation duct that is open right now," she finally said. "Ninth floor down. Looks like a control room of sorts."

He swallowed thickly, trying to contain the tangled ball of emotions that started to form inside of him. "Could be automatic."

"It was opened manually nineteen minutes ago."

It would have been more reassuring if the dodgy catwalk had collapsed under him right then and there.

He was aware of what this could mean, but he didn't want to  _ know _ , he didn't even want the  _ implication _ to be there.

"And you?" he asked.

She let out something that was most like an ominous chuckle. "You're just asking that for good measure, to seem less eager."

She was right, again, and he couldn't bear it.

"I'm descending deeper into the facility so I probably won't have good reception," he lied. "Blisk out."

He expected a snarky reply, but he got none. Ash had probably found something to distract her, otherwise she'd have been merciless on him.

The first floor below the assembly line was nearly empty, save for some abandoned repair equipment, the occasional emergency stop button, and small parts that had fallen from the assembly line through the rosters above.

He drew his wingman from its holster. It wouldn't help him if he got killed before finding out what was going on on the ninth floor down— he was  _ aching _ to find out.

His footfall was heavy, and there was no doubt someone with ill intentions would be able to hear him coming.

His earpiece suddenly came alive with a harsh sound, he just about jumped out of his skin. As soon as he had lowered the volume to a tolerable level, he heard Kane ranting incoherently about a singular Militia pilot roaming the reclamation facility he was combing for Militia personnel.

_ Idiot. _

He made it to the second floor, and as soon as he descended the stairs to the third floor the heat hit him in the face.

This was the first R-6D floor.

He couldn't even see if it stretched across the entire floor, the servers were packed too densely together for that. There were cables and flickering lights everywhere, sounds of fans kicking in and turning off irregularly. There were separate canals for ventilation, at the very backs of the servers. The rest of the floor was incredibly hot, almost unbearably so.

Every floor he descended after the next seemed more densely packed together than the last. The lighting overhead turned red after the fifth floor, and combined with the constant flickering and whirring and beeping from the servers it seemed less like he was venturing into a dwelling and more like he was inside of a synthetic alien being.

Floor eight. His hands had started to tremble now, his aim shaky. As soon as he noticed that, as soon as he  _ acknowledged _ that he was anxious for what he might find on the next floor down, he felt sick with anticipation.

He saw his reflection in a glass covering of one of the server towers. The red light made him unrecognisable, even to himself. His hair looked too light, his eyes too dark.

Frantic.

The final stairwell.

He could very well not be there. Or he could have just left. Or he had seen him coming— of course he would have— and chosen to leave, maybe he didn't want to see him, maybe he—

On the ninth R-6D floor, there was a thin sliver of white light coming from a door to the far left. It had been left ajar.

His heartbeat was unbearably loud in his own ears.

What if he would find Spyglass there? Could he even bare to speak to him? He had gone five years without, it would hardly be a change.

But something inside of him burned red hot, no, white hot. It drew him towards the door, closer and closer…

He opened the door.

_ Oh _ ,  _ god _ .

He had to look away and swallow thickly.

If he even had known Blisk was coming, him speaking up still caught Spyglass off guard. He jolted upright from his leaning position over power circuits and data terminals and turned around quickly.

Silence hung thick in the air between them. It was a lot cooler here than outside, and he shivered from the difference in temperature.

It could be the change in lighting, or it could be his mood, but Spyglass looked like a supernatural being in this lighting. There were so many fine movements about him that Blisk had forgotten over the years. The small movements of his antennae. The light flickering behind his optic. The way he always rolled his fingers open and closed before doing anything with them, as if remembering how to move. Right now, his fingers were balled into fists at his side.

"Spyglass," Blisk said.

Spyglass seemed to pause for a bit, to consider. Someone without a face should have been able to hide their emotions like no other, but his body language revealed way, way more than a facial expression ever could. Involuntarily, undoubtedly. Spyglass was a master at controlling his voice, but his body was an open book.

"Kuben," he then finally said.

Not commander. Not even Blisk. Just Kuben.

Blisk closed his eyes for a second, a deep, shuddering breath escaping from his nose.

He holstered his wingman.

It would be so easy to  _ pretend _ this was a professional encounter, to claim it was part of his contract.

He almost decided on doing so, right as Spyglass' antennae twitched strongly and he immediately turned back around, sounds of fans deep inside his body kicking into gear and making a set of fast, dissonant beeps sound.

Oh no. Oh, oh no.

Every intention he had to keep it professional evaporated at that very moment. It had been years, but he would never be able to forget what these sounds meant.

Spyglass’ body was designed to hold an AI, to hold the embodiment of information spanning an entire army, but it wasn’t equipped to express emotion. He had to rely on whatever involuntary sounds his body made, whatever organic resemblance he could manage from hardware that was built to be nothing but an intersection between databases and humans.

He was frozen in place for a few moments as his mind raced, as if channelling a younger self to remember how to express compassion.

It had been so long that it took actual effort now to remember what to do, to remember what to say. Or at least, that was what he told himself. The very moment Spyglass defensively crossed his arms and lowered his glance, back still turned towards him, he felt his mouth run dry and the burning feeling in his chest turn from an ember to a raging fire.

He wanted to say something, he felt like he  _ needed _ to say something, but simultaneously he felt like nothing he could say would even begin to convey what he  _ wanted _ to convey. He was very skilled at expressing himself in the field in excruciating detail, laying out battle plans for his pilots, but outside of battle, his words were always clumsy and underwhelming.

There was but a few steps of distance to close between them, but it felt rusty, it felt like a movement he hadn’t rehearsed enough.

He kept his hand hovering over Spyglass’ back, hesitating. It was possible to turn back now, to keep it professional, to stay emotionally detached. But the truth was… he had never been.

He still cared. Almost five years later, he still cared.

And he let his hand touch Spyglass’ back. The metal was warm, almost organically so. It made Blisk feel almost sick with guilt.

He opened his mouth to try to say  _ something _ that would break the weird tension in the room, but Spyglass looked up, the antenna on his head moved back, and Blisk felt the last restraints he'd meticulously kept up crumble.

Within moments, he had wrapped his arms around him and pulled him close, close, close to his chest.

_ “I’m sorry,”  _ he wanted to say, or  _ “It’s okay” _ .

Instead, he could only bury his head against Spyglass’ neck and feel him lower his head on top of his.

"It's been too long," Spyglass finally said, his arms closing around Blisk. "Far too long."

"If I bloody knew where you were hanging out I wouldn't have let it get to this point," Blisk muttered, his voice raw and a complicated blend of emotions tugging at the back of his throat. " _ Goverdomme _ . You bastard."

"You and I both know this is for a greater cause," Spyglass said slowly.

" _ A greater cause _ ," Blisk muttered. "What. The IMC? Because oh yes, I'll  _ gladly  _ take another bullet for them, that'll go just as bloody well as last time."

Spyglass looked up, puzzled. It was either the sarcasm or the mentioned events that had gone over his head.

"I left the IMC not too long after we parted ways," Blisk finally said.

Spyglass twitched his antennae and cocked his head, looking even more puzzled than before.

Then it hit Blisk.

Spyglass had only known him in his time as sergeant Blisk, and briefly IMC commander Blisk. Sergeant Blisk still took orders from superiors, answered with an automatic  _ sir, yes sir _ . Sergeant Blisk had actually gotten flustered the first time Spyglass had touched his face.

His careful fingers had examined the cut on his forehead, a hint of genuine concern in his normally synthetic intonation when he stated Blisk was bleeding. He had needed stitches and the local anaesthetic had numbed the skin for a good while, but he had lied awake the entire night still feeling Spyglass' gentle touch, wondering if the concern was programmed or if he was actually capable of it, of experiencing emotions at all. Why would a database need emotions?

A database didn't need emotions, that's what he had found out over the next while, but they did still develop, a byproduct of infinite knowledge. Or rather, a massive database, if left alone with machine learning and the ability to make its own connections, soon enough would develop an actual consciousness, very much like the neural pathways in an organic brain. The IMC had either not known or not cared, and over the course of several months he had witnessed Spyglass develop an actual, real personality.

He had never given much thought to romantic interactions in his life at all, but the day he had first actually, really,  _ deeply _ talked to Spyglass with a honesty he didn't remember ever having with anyone else, that was the day he also realised that deep inside his heart, there was still a sliver of something that was willing to experience infatuation.

Blisk rubbed his neck, loudly exhaled through his nose, shaking the memory from his mind. "I left the IMC because they rejected the 2714 Partitioning Act. I made them believe it wasn't the only reason, but it was."

"I didn't quite follow the development of that act." Spyglass crossed his arms again, now seemingly defensive. "Neither party actually cared, I am sure the Militia proposed it just to gather sympathy."

Blisk frowned. "How can you not have followed? You're literally hooked up to all of the IMC's knowledge, don't lie."

Spyglass' antennae perked up, then lowered again.

He moved his head as if trying to speak up a couple of times.

"I am not," he finally said. "They severed all my neural paths to IMC knowledge, but left the stubs. When at a database terminal, I can flawlessly connect with it, navigate all, know all. They don't need that a lot, they built neural librarians, new synthetic consciousnesses like me, only for navigating data, not pulling it. When the Remnant Fleet needs something pulled, they use me. That's why I am stationed here, just to pull data from a terminal manually. Without it, I am left with only the things I learnt on my own."

He looked away. When he spoke again, his voice was gravelly in a way Blisk had never heard before.

"Blisk. For five years now, all I had for myself— all that was  _ truly _ my own— consisted of thoughts and memories of you."

Blisk would have expected, would have preferred to find a Spyglass who had forgotten, who no longer cared about the past. 

This? This was ten times worse. This made him realise that he himself, too, did still care.

And now he was here, he had allowed Ash to accept the contract, to take them to Typhon. What was the point in delaying the inevitable longer? The sheer intensity of the emotions beating around in his ribcage was making him—

No.

"And for five years now, I have only dreamed about holding you in my arms again," Blisk replied. No facades. No tricks. Just the truth that had been on the tip of his tongue the entire time.

It felt... liberating to admit, not at all agonisingly vulnerable like he'd expected.

And it was true, oh god, was it true.

No more words were needed when he pulled Spyglass tight, tight, tight against his chest again.

And for that moment, he wasn't sergeant Blisk, or commander Blisk. 

Right then and there, commander Blisk was someone he'd never even really known. Right then and there, there was only Kuben. And Kuben was holding Spyglass tightly. And Kuben was allowing himself to realise that he indeed still did love Spyglass.

He was holding on to him for dear life, Spyglass was holding him too, and he was trying to make up for five years of lost time with this single embrace, so tightly, so afraid of letting go, so—

Kane's voice was in his earpiece suddenly, incoherent as always, but this time there was genuine fear in his shouted words.

Blisk let go of Spyglass, raising his hand to his earpiece, but before he could even ask for clarification there was a blood curdling scream and a sickening crunch and then… Silence.

_ Not good. _

" _ Ach _ . Fuck." Blisk pushed the transmission button on his earpiece, awkwardly raising his hand to Spyglass to indicate he was busy.

"Kane. Kane, come in, over."

Silence.

With a frustrated grunt he switched channels. Not now. Not now. Literally  _ any _ given time but now.

"Ash, this is Blisk. How copy, over."

It cost him so much effort to keep his voice steady. To be interrupted like that, in a moment of vulnerability, that jerked him right back into the defensive anger he usually kept as an armoured hull around his deeper, truer emotions.

To his relief, Ash replied almost immediately. She had undoubtedly heard Kane's cry for help too.

"This is Ash, go ahead."

"Kane is not responding." He clenched his jaw. "I think our militia pilot is trying to be a hero. He's got to be headed your way. Kill him."

He saw Spyglass' antennae shoot up in the corner of his eye, he was undoubtedly startled by Blisk's rapid shift from tender to ruthless.

"Understood. Ash out."

" _ Goverdomme _ ," he breathed to himself as soon as he released the transmission button, a familiar white hot anger pooling in his stomach.

Not now.

"Duty calls," Spyglass deduced.

Blisk nodded, his nails digging in his palm. "Wish it was different." He couldn't bear to look up. He just couldn't. He had seen a glimpse of what could be, a life that wasn't bleak and grim and cutthroat competitive, and it was yanked out of his hands just as fast again. It just wasn't fair. There was nothing good that would last once it was in his hands, it would either be corrupted by him, or it would be taken from him, and this was the same. Of course it was. It had never been different.

"We'll meet again," Spyglass said.

"Not another five years," Blisk said, his voice unsteady, avoiding Spyglass' glance. "Not again."

Spyglass shook his head, raised his hand to softly caress Blisk's cheek, and he looked at him, and Blisk had never wanted to stay this badly, he wanted Spyglass to ask him to stay.

_ Ask me to stay. _

_ Please ask me to stay. _

"Not another five years," Spyglass repeated. "I promise. Next time… Next time I'll find  _ you _ ."

**Author's Note:**

> man this fic was in my drafts for months and for WHAT! i brought this upon myself! only me and like 3 other people ship this so it's more of a pedal boat than a ship but it's OUR pedal boat so it's okay.... it's aaalllriiiight.....
> 
> tons of headcanons in this again, literally most stuff surrounding spyglass and synthetic consciousnesses are headcanons so yea. if anything's unclear just ask away!


End file.
